
Hundreds of rental bikes dumped in Dallas as Ofo opts out
While the mayor condemns the mess, fans accuse the government of pushing Ofo out
They first appeared in China: enormous piles of unwanted rental bikes. Now the mountains of discarded two-wheelers are making an appearance in the US.
Dallas, Texas now has its own “bicycle graveyards” as the Chinese bike-sharing company Ofo exits the city’s rent-a-bike business.
Among those who’ve reacted to the heaps of redundant bikes is the city’s mayor, Mike Rawling, who simply tweeted “Terrible.”
While some condemned Ofo’s decision to demolish all those bikes, others are blaming the government for pushing the bike-share companies out.
For those who are not familiar, dockless bike-sharing is essentially a large-scale bike rental business. But rather than having to go to a particular garage to get one, the bikes are deliberately left in public areas all across the city, and users can rent them simply by using an app.
Kids are the new target in China’s bike-sharing mania
Even though the companies running the schemes have promised to clean up and retrieve abandoned bikes, residents still report seeing them randomly strewn around the city, unattended.
But if you think what’s happening in Dallas is bad, you’ve seen nothing yet. In China, a massive amount of bikes have been found in parks, open fields, and even rivers -- many of them damaged, either by wear or acts of vandalism.

Mobike and Ofo salvage thousands of abandoned bikes from rivers
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For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters, subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report. Also roam China Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus.
